1S38]' 



I ' A K IVl E li S ' R L: G I S I' K R 



6(yf 



his farm of the first-memioned plant, told me that 

 he liad cut up all ihe ilocU in tlir greater part ol 

 one of his meuiiows, ieaviiisi; only a email pan 

 where It was so thick that there was no jirass on 

 it. To his astonishment, he tounJ the next year 

 that in this last nicrrtioned spot all the docU 

 was dead ; whereas, a iT;<)0(i deal of that which he 

 had cut up, and, as he supposed, had extirpated, 

 veixetated afresh. I was unable to account Ibr it 

 at that tune ; but the ditficuliy now a|)pears to be 

 of very easy solution. The spot, whei'e the 

 dock was thickest, had, no doubt, Iteen ijrow- 

 ing there ibr sonie years, until the ^-round had be- 

 coiiie so saturated with its depositethat it could no 

 longer find nourishment to suf)port it, and, there- 

 fore, died. Ten years airo, the thistle, that 

 " votress of the trales," as Darwin calls it, was 

 unknown \n this part of the country. But it soon 

 came to us in clouds " home on broad wings," 

 and created the apprehension that it would take 

 entire possession of our pastures ami meadows. I 

 beiran to make war upon if, as my lliend did upon 

 the dock ; but I Ibund it lasted hut a short time, al- 

 ways disappearing after the second year, fi'otn the 

 spot where it hail been previously thickest, al- 

 though the ground was covered with its seeds. 



I could add many more (itcts to confirm the the- 

 ory I have supported, but have already written 

 enough to tire your patience. 



Accept [iiy best wishes, and believe me with 

 great respect, your humble' servnnt, 



W. n. Harhisox. 



Dr. jR. Fry. 



From tiic Asiatic Journal. 

 HUMAJV FOOD. 



Wlien man is considered with reference only to 

 his intellectual part, it i*! not without reason that 

 he is styled by Shakspeare, "the beauty of the 

 world — the paraxon ol' animals." A beino-, that 

 is able in some degree to scan the work ol" crea- 

 tion — that can measure the glo-be on which he 

 lives, and calculate the motions of the njighty 

 orbs which roll in the immensity of space — that 

 has subjugated the elements to his us«!j and made 

 fire, air, and water his vassTvIs, may be said to be, 

 "in apprehension, like a god." To bringdown our 

 admiration of this '-paragon," toajuster standard, 

 however, it is unnecessary to enteV upon anestimate 

 of his moral imperfeclions — the specks which dark- 

 en ;uid disfiirure the brightness of his undertaking 

 — it is suifii-.ient to coUlemplate him in his animal 

 character, in order to tree how neailv, with ail his 

 intellectual pretensions, he is allied in habit to the 

 brutes. How moriilying is it to human vanity, to 

 think that there is scarcely any species of matter, 

 animal or vegetable, hi any state of immaturity or 

 corruption, which i.? not eaten by the human ani- 

 mal, and capable of assimilating with his sub- 

 stance, and thus forming an integral part of the 

 compound machine ol" mind and matter called 

 man! iMr. Donovan in his treatise on dumestic 

 economy, has devoted' a portion of the last vol- 

 ume to the subject of" human food, and has enu- 

 merated the various substances, animal and vege- 

 table, which constitute, or have constituted it, 

 amongst diH'erent nations. A more disgusting 

 catalogue it is scarcely possible to read. 



In his "accoiuit ol" utii-iuals used as foot'i'bv the 

 Vol. V— 76 



vtifions nations of the world," he finds it conveni- 

 ent to arrange tbem in a natural order, beginning 

 with man himself. It has been long doubled, he 

 observes, whether human beings could feed on 

 their fellow-creatures tor the mere sake of the 

 flesh, without any other incentive; but it has been 

 incontrnverlibly established, that man will devour 

 nian as his ordinary food, and often with a higher 

 relish; that leasts of human tiesh are resorted to 

 as sources of animal gratification; that the canni- 

 bal has not only his favorite parts of the human 

 bodv. but prefi?rs certain modes of cookery. Our 

 own ancestors were of the numberof these horrible 

 epicures. Diodorus Siculus charges the Britons of 

 Iris with being anthropophagi; and St. Jerome 

 (who lived so late as the fif^h century of the 

 christian eraj accuses a British tribe, fiom his 

 own personal knowledge, not only with a partiali- 

 ty for human tiesh, but a fastidious taste for cer-' 

 tain delicate parts of it. Not only in the Poly- 

 nesia, but in Africa, human flesh is still con- 

 sumed as ordinary food; and Stedman states that, 

 in the interior of the African continent, human' 

 limbs are hung up on shambles for sale, like 

 butchers" meat in Leadenhail market. 



This isrevoliing enough; but it is little less offen- 

 sive to consider the other animal food, which serves' 

 to allay the undistinguishing voracity of man. 

 Monkeys are esteemed delicate eating; the Che- 

 valier de Marchais says, that in South America, 

 monkey-flesh is allowed to be nourishing and very 

 delicate. The heads are made into soup, and are 

 served with it; and although a person at first ex- 

 periences some ditnculty in accustoming himself 

 to see heads which resemble those of little chil- 

 dren; when this repugnance is once conquered,- 

 he finds that monkey-soup is as good as any 

 other," Amonast other animals, the following 

 are eaten in different parts of the world; bats and 

 vampires, the sloth, the rhinoceros, the elephant,- 

 the seal tribe, the dog, the wolf, the foul jackall,- 

 the voracious hy;cna, the rank fox, the fcEtid' 

 skunk, the eat, the rat, the hedgehog, the camelj- 

 the horse, the ass, the tin-er, the lion, the whale,- 

 the shark, the crocodile, lizards, frogs, the 6oa con- 

 sirictor ("which is perierred by the negroes, to' 

 any other food J, the rattle -snake, the viper, or 

 adder. Mr. Donovan might have added to his' 

 list of nations who are serpent-eaters, the Chi- 

 nese, who liitten snakes as we do oysters, for the" 

 table. 



More discrinunation appears to be used in the' 

 insect tribe. A peculiarly disgus'inir insect is ea-- 

 irerly devoured by the Chinese and Hottentots:, 

 caterpillars are cooked into a dish in some parts of 

 Australia, and the people of New Caledonia eat 

 spiders. Ants and thi-ir egL^s are eaten by seve- 

 ral uationfT, and this kind oi'diet has been eufogizerf 

 by Eurof)eans who have partaken of it. In sornfe' 

 parts of the East Indies, it is said that vast qanti- 

 ties of' termites are collected and made with flou/. 

 info a variety of pastry ; but an inordinate use of 

 this food occasions colic, dysentery, and death.- 

 Mr. Srneaihman states that the Afi-Icans eat these' 

 auLs roasted by handl"uls, and several Europeans 

 have declared that they are most delicious — like' 

 sugared cream, or paste of sweet almonds. Lo- 

 custs are eaten in almost all the countries #here' 

 ihey a])pear, either fried, pounded with toflli,- 

 trroiind into fluur, and baked into cak<3s,. ot ai^Jt'S? 

 into soup. 



